I started using Fiverr in 2011, when I was a full-time corporate recruiter and my husband and I were saving up for an adoption. I love writing resumes and was already doing it, and I thought this might be a great way to make extra money.

When I started, I had zero feedback and referrals after my name, so I was doing resume revamps for $5. If it was an executive resume, it was extra. My prices then were probably 10% of what they are now — like $15 per gig. On average, I was making — I was still working full-time — so maybe $10-$15 an hour.

A year and a half in, Fiverr promoted me to Level 2 status, based on my positive customer ratings, so I could increase my prices. We were blessed to save enough for our adoption, so we have a beautiful three-year-old now. In August 2013, after she was born, I reassessed things and said, I can make this work full-time. I put more effort into marketing and offering other gigs, like career counseling, training people for interviews and writing cover letters and LinkedIn profiles, which allowed me to make more money. I also got several certifications to make sure I was the best resume writer I could be and that I could stand behind my prices.

At that point, my average price per order was probably $30-$50, and in 2013, I was making about $15,000 a month. In 2014, I made another $100,000 jump, and in 2015, when I earned $320,000, yet another $100,000 jump.

Now, for executives, whose materials are going to take a long time, I charge $500 to $800. As time has gone on, over 40% of my business has become through referrals, so people tell their friends to join Fiverr and find me. For new graduates or teachers, I’ll still do their resumes for $30.

Fiverr changed my idea of selling. They allow you to do custom offers. My first line says, ‘Contact me for a custom offer,’ so I can review their resume, see if they want a LinkedIn profile as well, or free interview tips, or a LinkedIn bio delivered rush for free — and give them a custom price.

Taking the leap to full-time was scary, honestly, partially because I was so used to being around people all day. But I’m eternally grateful to Fiverr — adoption is very expensive, and it allowed us to do that and we may again. It’s also given me flexibility — the ability to spend more time with my daughter, go to breakfast at daycare or take her to the zoo on a Wednesday afternoon and do stuff during the week rather than just Saturday and Sunday when there are crowds everywhere.

On the flip side, I don’t really take a day off. We love to travel — but when we do, we take it with us. I write resumes from the middle of nowhere. I also work evenings, because a lot of people contact me when they get home from work. I work about 50-55 hours a week.

Tip: Provide exceptional customer service. Deliver something a little extra than what the client asks for. Be in contact. I get so many orders, but even a simple message saying, ‘Thank you so much for your order, I’ll be in touch,’ goes a long way. Fiverr has introduced quick messaging where you don’t have to type every word out, so for every order, even though all my orders are due in seven to ten days, I tell them within 24 hours I received their order and it will be delivered on time.

After 10 years in the Army and writing for a real estate company that focused solely on Veterans Affairs loans, I decided I wanted out of writing strictly about veterans and so I started freelancing. The first year, I made $35,000, just from odds and ends stuff. Then, on Christmas 2014, I stumbled onto Fiverr. I didn’t mean for it to be anything more than a couple bucks here and there. I thought, I’ll buy some video games, take the kids to the zoo.

I started off just writing marketing and advertising materials for people — ads and sales pieces — but since then, people have hired me to write everything: personal emails, business emails, these long drip email chains. People have had me write their entire website and Facebook and the copy that drives them from one to another — basically people starting businesses. I’ve written more than 2,000 Amazon listings. Altogether, I’ve written for 51%-52% of countries worldwide.

My first couple months I made $800-$1,200, and then it just snowballed. Within six months, I realized I could do this full-time. Since Christmas 2015, I’ve made $10,000-$15,000 a month.

Though I didn’t mean for it to be more than extra money, I kept getting more orders, so I kept trying to upsell — ‘Well, if you want this, I can also give you this.’ And then I had so many orders I just had to up my prices in order to limit myself. So I upped my prices and I was still getting more orders. I kept having to charge more because I had too many requests. I figured if I got one order at this price, it would still equal two or three at the lower rate. I could increase my prices again but I feel like I’ve hit a decent sweet spot.

I average $60 per order, and that’s counting a 100-word email. That average also includes the $5 gigs I did at first. But excluding those, I would say my average is about $100 a job right now, so if I have 27 jobs in the queue, that’s $2,700. Hourly, it probably averages at about $150-$200 an hour. I don’t do $5 jobs anymore — unless it’s someone I’ve worked with a bunch who wants me to look at a paragraph.

Freelancing is very roller coaster. One day I might have two to three things to do, but I’ve had days when I had 27 things to do, which is an 18-hour workday.

I receive the most orders Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights, so I end up being super-busy on the weekends because I usually deliver a job within three to five days. On any given day, I’ll have 40-50 jobs in my queue.

But I appreciate that even if I work hard and have 20-30 jobs to do in a day, I have a lot better life because I don’t have to deal with bosses, I can tell people I don’t want to do a job that I don’t want to do. And I have flexibility. I’m taking my wife to Europe on a hiking trip for two weeks.

Tip: Persevere. This takes a lot of work and dedication. There are times when I pull a 17-hour day. Upsell and oversell everything. You can’t just walk into Fiverr, no matter how accomplished you are, and say, I’m going to charge $500. You’re not going to make a million dollars overnight. Start with $5 gigs and keep doing it until you build your reputation.

Also, only about 20%-25% of people leave reviews. You could havedone 20 jobs, but only have five reviews. I started upping my prices at 200 reviews, which is about 800 jobs, because then, I started to climb past other people offering similar services.

In January 2013, I was working in a corporate job and needed to pay some debt. I was a stage manager who had been doing voiceovers on the side for 13 years. I discovered Fiverr when I needed to get a document formatted, but I saw people were doing voiceovers. I thought, Maybe I can do work here as well and get that debt paid off. I joined in January 2013, and had a slow, steady start, but then everything just got really, really solid and snowballed to the point where I had to choose between my corporate career or this instead. I preferred doing voiceovers, so I began doing that full-time in September 2014.

There were fewer users then, but I’d get an order here or there and think, this person has the potential to be a repeat buyer. So I started building a portfolio of repeat clients. I also have a unique situation in that I can do both British and American voiceovers because I’m British but I live here.

In March 2014, I changed something on my profile that allowed clients to get a better idea of what I could produce. On Fiverr you have a gig video, but my original video was just me talking into a webcam. So I put together a professional video with demo samples of my work so clients could see exactly what they were buying — and then the conversion of my sales dramatically increased.

The most common projects I do are white board explainer videos where someone is displaying a product on a website and there’s narration. Fifty percent of my work is explainer videos and another 30% is voicemail systems. Then I do other projects like ebooks, radio, commercials, Kickstarter funding videos, cartoons, etc.

I work 30 studio hours a week and spend an additional six hours responding to emails and quote requests. Though my income varies monthly, my current projected revenue this month is $15,000, and my projected income for the year is $150,000 since December is lighter workwise. At my previous full-time job, I earned $52,000 annually.

Everyone on Fiverr starts offering services at $5, so I do 125-word vidoes for $5, which is about a 45-second explainer video. Altogether, between the email and making the video, it’s probably two to three minutes altogether. I earn probably $150 an hour and do about 250-260 gigs a week. I have a professional studio and have done 20,000 gigs, so people starting out might need more editing or might need a few more tries than I do.

Fiverr is such an expansive platform. There’s no ceiling on the amount of work I can generate. It’s nice to be in a position where your career can constantly grow. Regular voiceover artists might earn more per gig — like a radio personality in LA could make $500 for 10 minutes but have to spend more time to get the work. I, on the other hand, make my revenue in volume, since I don’t have to spend any time auditioning. I just wake up in the morning and there are orders waiting for me.

When I started out, I had $22,000-$23,000 in credit card debt and was living paycheck to paycheck. Fiverr enabled me to get out of debt completely. Then I gave my corporate job four months’ notice and banked the salary and lived on my Fiverr income, and with that saved up a down payment on my first house. My partner was working and in school part-time, and we were able to pull him out of work since we can maintain our lifestyle with my income. We’re moving across the country. I’m able to travel. My life is completely different now.

Tip: Presentation is really important. Right off the bat, be as professional as you can. It takes time but it’s worth the work. Also, you never know when your next client is going to become your best client. Treat everyone wonderfully so they buy from you again.